No terrorist link found in cynanide case

Federal agents are helping Denver police investigate the possible cyanide death of man found Monday in luxury hotel in Capitol Hill, but no evidence has yet shown terrorist links to the case, the FBI said today.

The coroner's office identified the man as 29-year-old Canadian Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, but little else has been disclosed about him or why he visited Denver.

Calls to his relatives in Ottawa were not immediately returned. Authorities are releasing no information on why Dirie was in the country.

The Ottawa Sun newspaper reported that Dirie was a member of the city's Somali community and interviewed manager Addirizuk Karod, manager of the Somali Centre for Family Services who recalled Dirie coming to the center with friends.

He said told the paper the Dirie family came to Ottawa as refugees years earlier but had attained Canadian citizenship. Dirie's father had traveled to Denver when he learned of his son's death, Karod said.

Federal and local investigators were back at the Burnsley All-Suite Hotel at 1000 Grant St. Tuesday to further investigate room 408, where he died, said FBI Special Agent Kathy Wright.

"I want to emphasize that the hotel is open for business as usual," she said. "Our concern was with one room and one room only, and we've completed out investigation there."

Wright said local authorities remain in charge of the investigation.

Denver police released no new information about Dirie Tuesday.

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The Denver Coroner's Office found no obvious cause of death, and tests to determine cyanide poisoning will take at least a week and possibly longer, said chief deputy coroner Michelle Weiss-Samaras.

She said that investigators found a small bottle of sodium cyanide, "which you can buy" she said.

Cyanide is a highly poisonous, fast-acting chemical compound available from a number of sources, including medical research and mining, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Denver police said Dirie had apparently been dead for several days when he was found dead in a suite Monday morning.

After the coroner's office said cyanide might be a factor, investigators returned a few hours later and found the powder thought to cyanide, though tests to prove that were incomplete Tuesday, according to the FBI.

For a short time, streets were blocked off around the hotel until the level of hazardous-material risk was assessed.

No other hotel guests or employees became ill, and the contamination has not been found elsewhere in the hotel, Denver police said Monday.

Jason Ford, general manager of the 17-story Burnsley hotel, said Tuesday he had no comment on Dirie or how long he had stayed at the hotel.

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